Stuart Saft

Veteran real estate lawyer Stuart Saft has been tapped to chair the New York real estate practice at Holland & Knight, only 13 months after joining the firm, Law360 reported.

While at Holland & Knight, Saft — who was formerly at Dewey & LeBoeuf and has been involved in many of the city’s largest deals over the past two decades – worked on Starwood Capital Group’s Baccarat Hotel deal as well as a 34-story hotel that Starwood is developing in conjunction with the Moinian Group. He has also been advising Ziel Feldman’s HFZ Capital Group on its Halcyon project in Turtle Bay.

Saft’s new responsibilities will include co-chairing the firm’s global hospitality group.

“We reached a level of really solid strength and now the focus will be on growing the practice,” Saft told Law360, adding that recruiting top talent was on the cards.

“Stuart Saft has represented many of the city’s most important owners and developers, helping to transform the landscape of New York real estate,” Joe Guay, Holland & Knight’s real estate section leader said in a statement. [Law360]  – Hiten Samtani

Sotheby’s New York headquarters at 1334 York Avenue

Sotheby’s, the renowned auction house, is putting its own Upper East Side headquarters up for sale, the New York Post reported.

Eastdil Secured’s Douglas Harmon and Adam Spies are marketing the 500,000-square-foot glass and granite building at 1334 York Avenue that occupies the entire eastern blockfront between East 71st and 72nd streets. The 10-story building’s giant floorplates make it an attractive option for hospitals, residential developers, and office and hotel operators, the Post said.

In 2009, Sotheby’s bought the building for $370 million from RFR Holding’s Aby Rosen. It plans to sell and lease back the facility until it finds or builds a new headquarters. “They want to do a short-term leaseback between three and five years,” a source told the Post.

The auction house has hired Jones Lang LaSalle’s Peter Riguardi and Alexander Chudnoff to help it find another location, possibly in Midtown or even on Manhattan’s Far West Side at the Hudson Yards.

“Given the location of our building, the current real estate market, the unsolicited interest we’ve received in our property and our responsibility to our shareholders, we are exploring our options,” Sotheby’s spokesman Andrew Gully told the Post. [NYP]  – Hiten Samtani

From left: Eyal Ofer of Global Holdings, Bill Rudin and Dan Kaplan of FXFowle

Developers the Rudin family and Eyal Ofer provided The Real Deal with new details (and renderings!) of their controversial overhaul of St. Vincent’s hospital in the West Village, and they were worth the wait. The 200 condominiums in 10 buildings designed by FXFowle will be called the Greenwich Lane, in homage to the quaint hood’s quaint past, representatives for the project said.

The new development, which will go on sale this fall, with closings expected in the fourth quarter of 2015, offers one- to six-bedroom residences. The teaser site — thegreenwichlane.com – went live yesterday; sales will be handled by Corcoran Sunshine Markmanageting Group.

A rendering of 150 West 12th Street

Each building will have “its own identity,” Rudin said in a statement provided to TRD, with “style references” from Bauhaus to New York prewar co-op. The varied finishes may suit a development that must blend the conversion of prewar buildings with ground-up construction of five condo towers and five townhouses.

The single-family townhouses will all face West 11th Street, while the other buildings will have addresses at 145 West 11th Street, 155 West 11th Street, 140 West 12th Street, 150 West 12th Street and 160 West 12th Street, the representative said.

Famed designer Thomas O’Brien, who once decorated Ralph Lauren’s house, will craft the spaces’ interiors — the lionized designer’s first residential development.

A rendering of 140 West 12th Street

The building takes its name from Greenwich Lane, the former name of Greenwich Avenue, the tree-lined thoroughfare of the West Village. The street was renamed in 1834.

The Rudins and Ofer’s Global Holdings purchased the property from the hospital’s bankrupt estate in October 2011 for $260 million, as previously reported. After a prolonged public approval process, the developers made a number of concessions to the city, including reducing the number of units (plans originally had the project boasting 450 homes) and a donation to local arts organizations.

Previous reports said the condos would ask in the area of $2,000 per square foot, but the the scope of the project has changed since then, and the representative said the developers have not yet settled on prices. However, given pricing at other new developments downtown recently — a penthouse at 56 Leonard is reportedly in contract for $4,500 per square foot — the prices will likely be considerably higher than that.

Aerial shot of the Brooklyn Navy Yard

1. Appeals court rules in favor of Upper East Side marine transfer station [DNAinfo]
2. Some middle-class NYC housing targeted at those earning almost $200,000 per year [NYO]
3. Steiner must hand over Brooklyn Navy Yard documents, judge says [Law360]
4. Governors Island’s seawall rehabilatition project kicks off [Governors Island Blog]
5. Councilmen grapple with Park Slope community board over Fourth Avenue overhaul proposal [Capital New York]
6. Checking in on Douglaston’s Northside Piers project [Brownstoner]
7. U.S. landlords less likely to rent to gay couples, study shows [Atlantic Cities]
8. Hollywood bigwig Michael Ovitz to sell his lots on Malibu’s Broad Beach [Real Estalker]
9. Artists look to put the “H” in Harlem with giant illuminated sign [NYDN]
10. Staten Island eviction fracas leads to landlord’s arrest [silive]
11. “Manhattan is over,” says critic about New York’s art scene [NYO]
12. A tongue-in-cheek FAQ on Citi Bike usage [NYO]

The Empire State Building and Rubin Schron

UPDATED, 6:00 a.m., June 19: Rubin Schron, president of Cammeby’s International and one of the city’s major property owners, has offered $2 billion in cash to buy the Empire State Building, according to a letter an attorney for the investor sent Tuesday to an attorney for Malkin Holdings, the firm that controls the iconic skyscraper.

Schron proposed to make a $50 million non-refundable deposit once the contract was signed, and close within 90 days, the letter, written by Stephen Meister, a partner at the law firm Meister, Seelig and Fein, said. (Click here to see the letter.)

Schron alternately offered the current owners an option to participate in a new ownership structure for the 102-story tower, located at 350 Fifth Avenue.

The proposal comes almost a month after the required 80 percent of the building’s investors signed on to approve the creation of a publicly traded real estate investment trust, Empire State Realty Trust, composed of the tower and 20 other buildings.

By some measures, the skyscraper is worth more — some $2.5 billion, according to published reports.

Yet the crux of the matter is not the value of the building, but the value of the stock, the letter argued.

“There is, of course, no guaranty of the price at which Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. securities will trade once the lock-out period expires,” Meister wrote in the letter. “For that reason, we trust that Malkin Holdings, consistent with its fiduciary duties, will give serious consideration to this offer.”

Malkin, Schron and Malkin’s attorney, Thomas Dewey, a partner at the law firm Dewey Pegno & Kramarsky, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meister represents investors who have been battling the initial public offering for months, and as of May had six clients who objected to a $55 million settlement that resolved a series of lawsuits from shareholders who had opposed the REIT’s formation.

When asked for a comment, Meister said in an email, “[You] need to understand where the REIT stock price goes.”

Also on Tuesday, Schron sent a letter to Jason Meister, a vice president at commercial firm Avison Young (and Stephen Meister’s son) outlining the offer. It identified Avison Young as the exclusive broker in the transaction, and noted that the commission would be paid by the buyer.

Cammeby’s owns a number of city assets including the lower 28 floors of the Woolworth Building at 233 Broadway in partnership with the Witkoff Group.

Stuyvesant Town

Some 2,000 tenants of Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village will be spared mid-lease rent hikes as part of an agreement between the owners of the 11,000-unit rental complex and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman, his office announced today.

CWCapital Asset Management, the special servicer that controls the complex, notified tenants of the rent increases in May. However, some tenants complained that leasing agents misrepresented the meaning of a rider on their lease agreements, according to City Council member Dan Garodnick, who lives in the complex and forwarded the complaints to the attorney general.

Under the deal, tenants who already moved to terminate their leases can withdraw the termination. The deal also applies to tenants who don’t have any documented proof of misinformation from leasing agents.

“It is our understanding that verbal assurances will be treated the same way as written evidence, but there does need to be some sort of description,” a spokesperson for Schneiderman told Town & Village, which first reported the news.

Leasing agents told some 39 tenants that they wouldn’t get a rent hike, according Gardonick. However, CWCapital told Town & Village that there had been only 10 cases of misrepresentation.

Tenants must file an affidavit — along with any documentation of statements made by leasing agents — to the Attorney General’s office by June 30. If they miss the deadline, they will have to pay the higher rent.

The dispute arises out of a long-running case over the unlawful deregulation of some units at Stuy Town; a New York state judge approved a settlement in April, but the tenants and owners continue to spar over how it is being implemented. [Town & Village] –Zachary Kussin

77 Warren Street and Andre Kikoski

Updated, 9:04 a.m., June 19: The Colonnade Group, a New York-based developer, is doing another condominium conversion in Tribeca, this time at a five-story building at 77 Warren Street, according to a description of the project on BuzzBuzzHome.

In December 2012, Colonnade paid $7.6 million for the 8,675-square-foot mixed-use building, located between Greenwich Street and West Broadway, according to PropertyShark.

The project will contain four full-floor, two-bedroom units and a retail condo on the ground floor Colonnade’s managing principal Greg Altshuler, told The Real Deal. The retail space is currently occupied by Warren 77, a sports bar owned by restaurateur Matt Abramcyk and former New York Rangers hockey player Sean Avery.

Since the condos won’t hit the market for another three months, Altshuler was loath to discuss specific pricing, but said it would be in the range of $1,700 to $1,800 per square foot, which would put the 1,700-square-foot units at between $2.89 million and $3.06 million. “We might be able to get more, but right now we’re looking at that,” he said.

“We’re looking to do an elegant renovation with some European flair and touch,” he added. No firm has yet been tapped to market the project.

Colonnade has tapped architect Andre Kikoski for the conversion. Kikoski – who is also working on Colonnade’s 174 Duane Street conversion project – said that he would look to create a “palette that speaks to the history and texture of Tribeca.”

The conversion would include installing wide-plank flooring, new kitchens and bathrooms; reconfiguring the existing bedrooms; and giving the lobby a facelift, Liam Harris, an associate at Kikoski’s firm, said. Construction is slated to begin in September and take roughly four months.

Colonnade plans to file building permit applications with the Department of Buildings in the coming weeks, Altshuler said, though he was not looking to raise the height of the building.

Gary Barnett, 251 Park Avenue South and Frank Ring

A nearly vacant office property that is part of the fabled F.M. Ring portfolio will be sold in a public auction on Aug. 28, following a ruling in New York state court, the New York Observer reported. Ring owns the property, at 251 Park Avenue South, with Extell Development, but the companies have been engaged in an ownership dispute.

Extell owns half the 120,000-square-foot building under a “tenancy in common” arrangement — a form of ownership for a single property by two parties, the Observer said. The single-structure can’t be divided, necessitating the August sale.

Bidding for the 16-story building, which is 70 percent vacant, will begin at $0, and will be open to all, including the current owners.

Extell previously won control of 20 West 47th Street from the Rings in 2011, as The Real Deal reported.

“It’s a beautiful, classic old building with magnificent ceilings and unbelievable light,” court-appointed referee Joshua Stein told the Observer. “You can’t buy it for the income; you buy it because you’re going to put capital into it. It’s a development play.” [NYO] –Zachary Kussin

421 Kent Avenue rendering

1. Christine Quinn goes on offensive over UES marine transfer station [DNAinfo]
2. Midtown East townhouse near River House asks $7.5 million [Curbed]
3. WASA/Studio One architects make progress with stalled Kent Avenue residential building [Curbed]
4. Rec center on West 60th Street reopens after $15 million makeover [DNAinfo]
5. Bernardo Fashions adds five years to lease at 463 Seventh Avenue [Crain’s]
6. Williamsburg penthouse condo at the Edge resold for $3 million [NYO]
7. Bushwick cafe reborn as Ethiopian speakeasy [DNAinfo]
8. One-acre farm to crop up at Red Hook Houses [Crain’s]
9. Will 2013 be the year of the triple-digit — $100 per square foot and up – office lease? [NYO]
10. Veteran broker Marilyn Kane gives Iridium Capital a lift [GlobeSt]
11. Citi Bike may come to Greenpoint soon [Brownstoner]
12. NYU hooks up professors, exec with summer home loans [NYT]
13. Revised FEMA maps to cut back on high-risk zones [WSJ]
14. Calif. judge expected not to free Goldman Sachs from $491 million MBS suit [Housing Wire]
15. Inland Diversified Real Estate Trust and Strategic Storage Trust turn to investment bankers for managing money [CoStar]